


‘Cause You’re A Sky Full of Stars (I’m Going To Gove You My Heart)

by forgadgetsandgizmos



Series: Alex Manes Week 2020 [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Needs a Hug, Alex Manes Week 2020, Canon Compliant, Drinking & Talking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Michael Guerin Needs a Hug, POV Alex Manes, Self Confidence Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24861076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgadgetsandgizmos/pseuds/forgadgetsandgizmos
Summary: Someday,if they were braver.After,when they’d be adults and free.It was a sweet kind of irony that the reason they had always came here then was the same reason he was here now.Michael had always found comfort in the desert.-Or, Michael mourns the consul that was destroyed at Crash-Con and makes a confession to Alex.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Alex Manes Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798780
Comments: 17
Kudos: 115





	‘Cause You’re A Sky Full of Stars (I’m Going To Gove You My Heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Alex Manes Week 2020 | Prompt: Hope Can Be A Person
> 
> -
> 
> Title and lyrics at the end from A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay (which is totally a Malex song, give it a listen).

It was nearing sunset when Alex pulled his jeep beside the familiar, fading colors of Michael’s white-and-blue truck and cut off the engine. Looking around from where he sat in the driver’s seat, the place hadn’t changed in the decade since he’d last been here. He had been a hopeful 17-year-old in love, high on dreams of the future, carving _A M_ into tree bark. 

Alex chuckled under his breath. They hadn’t been brave enough to add the plus or a heart. With only two letters, it could easily be mistaken for Alex’s own initials, but Michael had left an empty space between with whispered promises of _someday_ and _after._

_Someday,_ if they were braver. 

_After,_ when they’d be adults and free. 

It was a sweet kind of irony that the reason they had always came here then was the same reason he was here now. 

Michael had always found comfort in the desert. 

Alex stepped out of the jeep, the uneven sand beneath his feet sinking in greeting. He sent a quick prayer of thanks that he had the sensibility to put on boots this morning - his prosthetic would be hell to deal with if sand got in it - before locking the car and heading forward. 

A heavy breeze brought the sound of tree leaves ruffling, their healthy emerald color shimmering under the orange desert glow. It also brought sharp clinks of glass hitting rock from where Michael sat facing the sunset. 

His body was a dark shadow against the tan background, the light illuminated stray curls escaping from under his trademark black cowboy hat. It reminded Alex of a scene in an old western. 

Michael had to know he was here - he couldn’t be so drunk that he missed the loud rumble of Alex’s jeep - but he hadn’t turned around. Alex supposed that means he has to go to him. Though if he’s being honest with himself, the only somewhat flat part of the stone that can be used climb to Michael looked a lot more daunting at 28 than it had at 17. 

Probably because the last time he’d climbed up and down that rock it had been with two steady legs and a sober Michael to lend a hand. 

Banking on familiarity with the path and muscle gained from a decade of military training to compensate, Alex ducked under the tree blocking his way and started up. It was slow going, frustratingly slow, but he made it to the top without any injury to himself or his leg.

“You climbed up.” 

Alex took that as an invitation and sat down, his legs (all one and a half) joining Michael’s in dangling off the edge. “I did,” he answered. 

Michael grunted and offered him a bottle. “Whiskey?”

Alex took the bottle from him but shook his head. “I shouldn’t. One of us has to drive back eventually.” 

“Then give back the bottle.” 

Alex tipped it over the edge, far enough that sand would cushion the fall and it wouldn’t break. If the level of whiskey and the bottle opener he had scene in the truck were any indication, Michael was at least three shots past tipsy. He didn’t need to drink anymore. 

“Or do that,” Michael scowled. 

“You’re drunk enough already. It’ll be hard enough to climb off this rock sober, I don’t want to have to carry you.” 

Michael flung a hand forward, “That’s what jumpin’ is for.” _Obviously,_ his tone said.

Alex raised an eyebrow and gave the rock a kick with his bad leg. Boots were okay for walking, but they couldn’t keep all the sand out if he took a 15-foot drop into it. This was a new prosthetic too, and his doctor at the vet hospital in Albuquerque would kill him if he ground down the joints in less than a month. 

Michael’s face clouded over, jaw clenched shut. 

“We gonna talk about why you’re up here?”

”I like the view,” he drawled, tipping his hat with a playful smirk. 

“You seem upset,” Alex prodded.

Michael snorted. “You’d think. I’m not.” 

“Oh?”

Michael’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “Really, I swear,” he laughed. “Look,” he whispered, pointing head of them. 

The sky was glowing. 

As far as Alex could see, the sky was a myriad blue, purple, and pink shades. Where the sun still hit it, the sand, so often harsh and burning, reflected the colors back to the sky as if it was waving to an old friend. The rest formed a black contrast that seemed to deepen each shade. They set in comfortable silence in their oasis, watching the colors merge and morph on the horizon as sun inched down lower. 

“Before I joined the Air Force, I assumed I’d never leave the west coast. I wanted to be a musician, so kid-me just _knew_ that all I’d have to do was go to L.A. and never leave. I’ve never even been to L.A.” Alex remarked to himself, eyes still on the horizon. But in between the camouflage of fatigues and the gunpowder smoke, I saw so many different people, so many cultures.” He let his awe fill his voice as he spoke. “And I’d catch myself missing this ... empty desert that I grew up miserable in.”

Michael glanced at him with a confused smile. 

“What?”

Michael shook his head softly. “I never thought of Roswell as home. I didn’t even live here until I was eleven. And Max and Iz tried their best but,” he shrugged. 

“But you wanted to search the desert for pieces of an alien spaceship,” Alex finished. Michael wanted to leave. He still does, and Liz might have destroyed his best chance at Crash-Con.

“I worked so hard. The consul Liz destroyed would have killed a lot of people and I don’t wish it had, don’t get me wrong,” Michael rushed to say, alcohol slightly burring his words together as he tried to speak too fast. 

“It’s okay to mourn a dream,” Alex reassured him. He tried to project acceptance and comfort instead of the sick loneliness that always settled in when he thought about Michael leaving Earth. 

“No, you don’t get it,” Michael exclaimed, knotting his fingers in his hair and knocking his hat behind him in the process. “I’m not mad, not pissed, and I should be so that’s why I’m drinking on a rock on a Monday.” 

He must have scene a puzzled look on Alex’s face because he started to clarify. 

”You said when you were a kid and home in Roswell, you wanted to see the world and once you did, you missed home, right?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. How did that have to do with anything?

“I always felt like I was already seeing the world and I was always missing home, even if I didn’t remember it. I don’t know when it changed but when I realized that consul had blown up and I hadn’t even tried to save it, I just ran off to help you and then Maria?” 

He gestured to the whiskey bottle laying in the sand. “Yeah, I’m mourning, but I’m mourning my chance to see my past and to visit that world. I don’t feel like it’s my home anymore.” 

The sky had lost its color now. If the sunset had been an old western, this was a black-and-white picture movie. Everything he saw was monochrome, washed out in grays and blacks. 

“Roswell still sucks,” Michael continued. “but that’s okay. It’s not my home.” 

Alex took a deep breath as if steadying himself for the answer. “What is?”

Michael met his eyes with a steady gaze. He looked confident, the slight glaze and wide eye-look from alcohol making his irises shine as if the moon itself was looking at him under the colorless sky. 

He smiled sadly. “Home can be a person, Alex. I found mine when I was seventeen. It’s just taken me a little while to realize it, is all.” 

Oh. _Oh._ Alex didn’t say anything, just stared at Michael in wonder. He didn’t think he could speak if he tried. He never expected, he, that - he never expected this. That he loved Michael more than Michael loved him was a fact that he had come to terms with. He didn’t know what to do with _this._

Would Michael regret this in the morning? 

Alex knew he was too afraid of the answer to ask. 

After long, Michael’s face lit up with relief. His emotions had always changed often and quickly, even when they were kids. He understood the need, of course, to project a feeling you thought someone wanted from you, but unlike Alex, Michael seemed to actually _feel_ it. 

“You don’t need to respond. Really, you already have,” he pointed out. 

Yeah, maybe. 

“Let’s just lay here, yeah?” He leaned back, head to the sky.

Alex joined him, still silent. Words echoed in his head, each thing taking on a new meaning he hadn’t seen before.

_They’re my family, Alex!_  
_All right, maybe. But you’re mine._

_I loved you. And I think you loved me._

_I know you loved me._

_I know what he means to Alex_

_You are the best of me._

“In a little bit, I’ll be sober enough to move you down,” Michael whispered. “Until then, the stars are out.” 

He meant float him down off the rock with telekinesis, Alex realized. For some reason, the notion warmed him almost as much as Michael’s earlier confession had.

Alex nodded, and they lay together under the stars illuminating the sky, Michael’s low humming joining the sounds of desert coming to life. 

-

_I don’t care, go on and tear me apart._

_And I don’t care if you do._

_‘Cause you’re a sky full of stars,_

_I think I see you._

_Such a heavenly view._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/Kudos bring me joy (: 
> 
> Visit me on tumblr same username !


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